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HOW should we define ‘near market research’? In the corridors of the
House of Commons, one definition is ‘Research that Nigel Lawson does not
want to pay for’.

Lady Trumpington, under-secretary of state for Agriculture, Fisheries
and Food, has written to many people in the agriculture and food industry
about the next stage of consultations on the transfer of funding for near-market
research to the industry. She emphasises that the government will continue
to give priority to work in support of statute and policy, such as research
on food safety, ‘which is essential to protect public interest’. Closure
or drastic cuts, however, will take place at many laboratories and research
stations.

David Nicholson, whose constituency includes the doomed Liscombe Experimental
Husbandry Farm in Somerset, has pointed to the contribution that such establishments
make to research into pollution control, conservation and other environmental
issues. Alas, I doubt if he will get very far. Gone are the farmer Knights
of the Shire who would say to the Prime Minister: ‘You’re not on!’ In their
place are the serried ranks of accountants and advertising men.

I asked Ralph Howell, the farmer and Conservative MP for Norfolk North,
how many of his 340 colleagues were farmers. I speculated that it might
be about 20. ‘More like a half-a-dozen,’ he said. The political muscle to
save agriculture research is just not there.

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DAFYDD Ellis Thomas, leader of the Welsh Nationalists, is a leading
anti-nuclear campaigner. He has asked ministers at the Department of Energy
about the reasons for shutting down the Pluto reactor for testing materials
at Harwell, and the estimated cost of doing this.

Michael Spicer, the minister immediately responsible, evaded the question
of costs, but did confirm that Pluto will be closed at the end of March
1990. The reason is that ‘the prospects of business beyond the end of the
forthcoming financial year are judged to be insufficient to maintain the
operation of two materials-testing reactors’.

Is the demise of Pluto necessary and wise? I am told by two readers
of New Scientist (who have to remain anonymous, but who are well informed
on such matters) that it is not, and simply hands the leadership in materials
testing to other countries.

The pity is that this is precisely the sort of issue which the old Select
Committee on Science and Technology of the House of Commons might have looked
at. Alas, the Departmental Select Committee on Education and Science is
packed with schoolteachers who find the bread-and-butter political issues
of schools more important than seemingly arcane science issues.

Meanwhile, MPs can interest themselves through parliamentary questions
and letters to ministers about the decommissioning of Pluto, which the UK
Atomic Energy Authority is evaluating. I gather that the Health and Safety
Executive is fully involved. But such an approach is simply no substitute
for the old Select Committee on Science and Technology.

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THE information that came out of Washington in March about the damage
that chlorofluorocarbons are causing to the ozone layer is alarming. It
was reassuring, therefore, to hear from Virginia Bottomley, the junior environment
minister, that the members of the British Aerosols Manufacturers Association
have agreed to end all non-essential use of CFCs in their products by the
turn of this year, and that they are ‘well on course to achieve this’.

This led Allan Roberts, the Labour MP for Bootle, to question Bottomley
on the touchy subject of British companies exporting CFCs to countries that
have not signed the Montreal protocol. She informed us that the protocol
does not ban the export of CFCs to such countries, because this might persuade
them to start their own production of CFCs. From 1 January 1993, however,
any nation exporting the controlled CFCs or halons will have to reduce its
domestic consumption by an equivalent amount.

As to when ozone-benign refrigerants will make their appearance, Bottomley
hopes that these will be available early in the 1990s. Their introduction,
however, will be subject to satisfactory conclusion of toxicological testing.
At present, she told the Commons, the voluntary approach to reductions in
the use of CFCs is ‘working well’. Yet, should new rules become necessary
to enforce the use of more beneficial refrigerants as they become commercially
available, then ministers would introduce such rules. My impression is that
MPs of all parties suspect that such rules will indeed become necessary.